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TechPlayon Talks with Mr. Zahid Ghadialy

They say “You are successful when You don’t need to introduce yourself”. We are lucky that we got a chance to interact with one such personality recently. When we came up with the idea of putting across success stories, we prepared a list and Mr. Zahid Ghadialy was one of the first person we wished to get in touch with. And the best part is even being so occupied he was the first one to get back to us. Anyone working/worked in telecom must have come across his blogs manier times. Also, there are a lot of people like us who used his blogs as reference and guide books as well.

It is not easy to keep writing for more than 13 years and still have lakhs of users viewing each article. So we decided to ask him what keeps him going, where he started from and how telecom is evolving?

TechPlayon: Hello Sir, It’s was honour to speak with you and thanks a lot for giving us the opportunity. You are a source of telecom and technology information so much, that we think we can keep discussing about it the whole day. I would love to take the opportunity to let people like us,( who follows you and your blogs),know more about you and how you have managed to keep the writing for years.

Q 1. TechPlayon: How did you come up with the idea of blogs when it was comparatively less popular 13 years ago?

A 1. Zahid Ghadialy : I had been running the 3G/4G website for a few years but realised it’s difficult to maintain. The blogs on the other hand were easier and simpler to add and modify. The initial aim was that it used to contain notes for me and my colleagues. Sometime later I realised that other people were finding them useful too, so I let all the info be public with thought of helping others.

TechPlayon: Amazing , in short what was meant to be your personal notes, now are technological notes for everyone in the industry

Q 2. TechPlayon: What keeps you going and motivating about keeping up with technology and keeping world informed via your blogs.

A 2. Zahid Ghadialy : Over the years I have received a lot of feedback and emails from people far and wide on how the blogs helped them learn something or how it helped them in their career. This is a good enough motivation to keep me going. I always appreciate feedback.

TechPlayon: Indeed, you have been source of great knowledge for all of us, I remember one of my colleague saying the other day, he learnt 3G reading your writings and believe me, he is 3G Access network developer.

Q 3. TechPlayon: What would you like to advice young bloggers or technology enthusiasts how to start?

A 3. Zahid Ghadialy : “Start slowly and steadily and keep going”.

“For the first couple of years you may not get many people but you can only slowly build credibility.”

“Also try and cover an area nobody else is covering. There are many possibilities.”

TechPlayon: Thanks for the mantra, we cannot agree to it more as we have started couple of times and this initial stage do come.

Shifting attention to technology now, since you are here just would like to take your inputs on few interesting discussion going in the telecom scenario.

Q 4. TechPlayon: With technology evolving so fast, how do you see future networks, it seems it would be combination of both Licensed and Unlicensed technologies?

A 4. Zahid Ghadialy: You are correct. Licensed and unlicensed will always co-exist. Take for example even today Wi-Fi complements cellular very well.

TechPlayon: It has always been the case and we also agree co-existence is the key to real heterogeneous network.

Q 5. TechPlayon: With LTE-U/LAA and Multifire, do you see Wi-Fi struggling or will 802.11ax will make sure Wi-Fi as always have their part of future networks?

Zahid Ghadialy: I have my doubts about LTE-U/LAA and Multifire. The technology is great but I am not sure if there is a strong enough business case. I have to think about it further and maybe a blog post on this topic 🙂

TechPlayon: We would be waiting for the same.

Q 6. TechPlayon: Small Cells have been there since long, every year it seems this would be the year when Small cells deployments will shoot but operators seem to be sticking with IBS/DAS indoors and find various limitations for outdoors, Do you think Small cells will achieve what has been long predicted?

A 6. Zahid Ghadialy: There are quite a few (artificial) barriers to small cells technology. Not the technology per se but it’s the whole solution. The operators did not have enough compelling reasons until now to go for small cells and some vendors made the whole solution very expensive that further demotivated the operators. This is changing, especially with 5G just a few years away. The operators have now started to embrace the small cells, vendors have become more innovative and the councils and municipalities are starting to understand that good connectivity brings more business. They are facilitating the small cells as opposed to hindering just a few years back. We will see more small cells for coverage as well as capacity being deployed in the coming years.

Q 7. TechPlayon: Another hot topic NB-IOT or LWPAN unlicensed technologies such as Sigfox/ LoRA, which you see as a long term solution?

A 7. Zahid Ghadialy: Here again the market forces will decide what will succeed. In the unlicensed technologies, I am more confident of LoRa. In case of licensed, looks like NB-IoT is picking up pace. It’s not there yet but in couple of years it will be a good challenger to Sigfox and LoRa.

Q 8. TechPlayon: Last but not the least sir, so what does the person who teach the world with is blogs and writings do apart from blog (something about your current role and products), also do you have any free/pleasure time in day?

A 8. Zahid Ghadialy: Life is about getting balance right. There are plenty of hours in a day to do work, write blogs / tweets and also enjoy time with family.

In my current role with Parallel Wireless, I am very excited as we move to the next phase of connecting the unconnected in different continents. On a personal front, I am looking forward to the summer vacation where the family can spend more time together.

TechPlayon: Couldn’t agree more, all about balancing the life and do what you love to do the most. We thank you for your time sir, it has been amazing talking to you. We wish you all the very best and keep us educating. Cheers.